Indian eCommerce rakes in investments

Several Indian eCommerce players are rapidly raking in investments, with India’s number 2 (Snapdeal) receiving 200 million dollars in funding. Market leader Flipkart is also mentioned in the local media.

Booming business

Snapdeal, India’s second largest eCommerce website, recently acquired 200 million dollars (179.5 million euro) from a group of institutional investors, business paper De Tijd writes. Barely 6 months ago, it had already received half a billion dollars in investments from Alibaba, Softbank and Foxconn. Since it was founded, Snapdeal managed to attract 1.8 billion dollars (1.6 billion euro) in funds.

That is a huge sum, but still well below what “India’s Amazon”, market leader Flipkart, managed to attract. In total, it obtained 3.2 billion dollars (2.87 billion euro) in funds, while local media estimate it still has several billion dollars in reserve, according to De Tijd.

Indian eCommerce has experienced a very large growth, from 2.06 billion euro in 2012 to 15.7 billion euro in 2014, nearly 8 times as much. This obviously attracts interest from foreign investors.  

Belgian link

There is also a Belgian link: both Indian internet giants are not unknown to Sofina, a Belgian holding with 2 % in Flipkart and a small stake in Snapdeal. It acquired the stake in April last year when Flipkart acquired Indian Freecharge and partly paid for that deal in shares.

British business paper Financial Times reported yesterday that Sofina – alongside Blackrock, a Chinese fund and others – invested another 200 million pounds (256.5 million euro) into The Hut, the British owner of websites like Mankind (beauty for men), Coggles (designer clothing), Exante Diet (diet food) and Myprotein (sports food).